Order of the Greater Good, First Class?
by mandymld
Summary: Harry Potter doesn't come to Hogwarts because he has been missing for eleven years and no one knew it. What happens when a crazed headmaster tries to cover this fact up. Harry is secondary to Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape in this story. Plus you get a small taste of the of the Labyrinth's goblin king. Not enough to be a crossover, but an appetizer.


A/N: Another story from my thumb drives, this one was written last year when Alan Rickman passed away so closely after David Bowie, which is why we get the Goblin King guest staring in a small role. This one came from the idea of retirement is a good idea for the headmaster and what would happen most of the time when you act as crazy as he did.

 **Order of the Great Good, First Class**

 **Chapter One**

 **Are You Sure?**

* * *

Severus Snape was pinching his nose as he struggled to understand what it was that the headmaster seemed to think that he could do about the situation that he found himself in. He saw the pursed lips and clenched fists as Minerva McGonagall seemed to be dealing with anger issues as she glared at the same wizard.

"We have to keep this quiet." Albus Dumbledore was announcing as he paced back and forth in front of his two most trusted associates, well trusted was an interesting word for it, at heart, Albus Dumbledore trusted the advice of no one over his own. "What do you think we should do?"

"You..." Minerva's face was now turning an interesting shade of red and Severus was a bit concerned because she was between him and the exit and right now, that seemed a very worrying position. "You, you, I told you, I told you those muggles were the worst sort of..."

"The Evans family always seemed decent enough to me." Severus said trying to placate the hissing cat who turned towards him with narrowed eyes and he suddenly decided that placating her by defending the headmaster wasn't a brilliant plan so he hastily added "Though they did raise Tunie as well as Lily and she was always a right jealous cow who loathed her sister, but it's not like the headmaster left Potter with..."

Severus' voice trailed off when he had a thought and his eyes turned black as coal and his head snapped to look at the headmaster so fast you could hear the bones in his neck cracking as he yanked out his wand and pointed it at the older wizard. "You placed Lily's son with her sister?"

"Of course, she shared blood with Lily." The man placidly said and found the need to back up when he saw the dark-haired wizard standing, the tip of his wand now lit up death curse green and a curse already forming on his lips. "Now, now, how was I suppose to know that she misplaced the boy? I had Mrs. Figg there to watch over them if there had been anything amiss she was under orders to inform me immediately."

"Misplaced?" The tip turned yellow as the wizard shouted the word that stuck out the most in that previous sentence. "Potter isn't a shoe, but a child, you can misplace a shoe, but not a human, especially not that human."

Albus Dumbledore was reaching for a lemon drop and tilted it towards the two in his office and asked "Lemon Drop?"

The words Stupify were hissed and the wizard with the long beard dropped with a loud thud onto the stone floor. "Why did you do that?"

The elderly witch dropped her wand on the desk and walked around the desk to pick up the venerable wizard's wand and place it in her pocket. "I was going to transfigure him into a mouse but decided to wait."

Severus Snape came around the desk and his wand tip lit up but found the elderly woman placing her hand on his arm and tilting it away. "But I really want to use a rather interesting bowel removing curse I discovered on him."

"No, I would prefer not to have to hire a potion's professor at this late of a date. Besides, we have bigger worries than Albus Dumbledore's delusions. You need to speak to Hagrid, I will deal with what to do with him."

"Can I at least curse him with a hair removal hex?" Snape asked as he glared at the man laying on the ground. Just as he was getting prepared to do so, she stopped him yet again and he couldn't resist whining a bit "Are you sure I can't curse him?"

"Yes. It might trigger the safeguards to protect the headmaster, I think I was lucky to get away with stupifying him." She said as she struggled with her own urges to do damage to the supposed most powerful wizard since Merlin. "Go, deal with Hagrid."

"Fine, but are you sure I can't just, I don't know; break his nose a bit more?" He asked as he glared at the witch standing there with a tight grip on her wand. "I can use muggle means."

"Go, deal with Hagrid and if I am right, we can make the funds needed to restore Hogwarts to greatness by selling off the rights for a chance to tell the so-called great wizard what people think of him when they hear that he has been making up the tales of Harry's supposed life and that the muggles he left him with never found the boy on their doorstep."

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

 **What is the Best Way**?

* * *

Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge turned five different shade of white as they listened to the tale that Minerva McGonagall was telling them. "So let me get this straight..."

Fudge's lips kept moving but no words came out as he tried to speak but found himself unable to even repeat what he had just heard, so Amelia Bones took a large gulp of the muggle scotch that the Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft had given to them before she bluntly just told them that Harry Potter was missing.

"Albus the idiot Dumbledore left the Boy Who Lived, whose parent's had just died a heroes' death on the doorsteps of muggles in the middle of the night in November. He didn't even watch to ensure that they found the boy, didn't check on him for TEN YEARS other than placing an elderly squib in the neighborhood, a few blocks away. A squib who had no idea what the boy who lived looked like and told her to only contact him via an owl if it was an absolute emergency."

Amelia took another deep drink and continued "Ten year pass, he sends an owl with an invite to Hogwarts, it doesn't get acknowledged, so he send repeated owls until it is almost the deadline for the boy to accept admission and then, instead of sending yourself or even one of the other professors, he sends Hagrid, who was expelled from Hogwarts and who works as a member of the staff as the Keeper of Keys and Gatekeeper. Who when he finds the boy who lived not there, returns, but only after a stop at Gringotts to pick up something else that he claims is top secret for the headmaster."

By now, Snape who was standing against the mantle snorted at the idea of sending Hagrid who couldn't keep a secret to do secret business. "You have the gist of it, but you missed the part where he decided that we needed to keep it quiet and that we would gather a bunch of PRIMARILY PUREBLOOD out to pasture and eccentric, to say the least group of wizards to track down a child who has been missing for nine years and eight months. A boy lost in the muggle world where every single one of them would stick out so obviously that your obliviators would be kept busy for the next decade."

Fudge was now sputtering as he tried to imagine what the voting public would think of the Boy Who Lived being lost on his watch after he had been the one to give the yearly reports on his life and who had repeatedly assured them that he would be attending Hogwarts that fall.

"But he is Dumbledore...why would he...reporters...resign..." Fudge was incoherent until Amelia getting annoyed reached over and pinched him on the arm. When that didn't work, she slapped him upside the face, grateful that he seemed to get it together. "Now what?"

"Well, first we need to locate the boy. The best place to start would be in the muggle world, maybe speak to the muggle minister and have them check the records for a muggle boy who matches the Potter boy's description. Black hair, green eyes, with a scar on his forehead. Give them his approximate age." Severus suggested. "Meanwhile, we do need to consider that this should be kept quiet, just to prevent the public from trying to present impostors to try to claim the Potter estate."

"Oh dear." Fudge began to stare into the distance again as he tried to deal with the ramifications of what they were suggesting. "Of course, the muggles, our best bet to locate the boy."

"What about the headmaster?" Amelia pointed out the obvious problem. "He won't keep out of anything we attempt."

"We need to deal with the other issue." Minerva pointed out. "The one where the headmaster keeps insisting that He Who Must Not Be Named is back as well."

"I rather fear that Dumbledore has begun to lose a grip on his wand," Amelia said. "The problem is that how do you tell a man like that that it might be time to retire from public life?"

"Yes, what is the best way to say thanks for everything you have done for us, but it is really time for you to retire." Fudge pointed out.

"Lemon Cake with lemon icing, of course after an announcement in the Daily Prophet, maybe name an award for him." Severus sarcastically suggested. "The Order of the Greater Good. First Class, with him the first recipient."

"Actually..." Minerva and Amelia looked at Severus and after considering it stated "You might have meant that in a sarcastic manner but it might be a good plan. We can keep him out of the way for a few days with the Draught of Living Death, but then spread the word that he is ailing, not telling them the whole truth, no need to have people panicking because he has gone around the bend, but just enough to force Albus to be hoisted on his own petard."

"Severus Snape, I hereby authorize you to administer the banned potion known as the Draught of Living Death to Albus Dumbledore." With that, Fudge for the first time in his life took bold steps to ensure the protection of this world, not just his position as he offered up a magical oath to back up his words. "No one outside this room is to know what we know other than those who we need to search for the boy who lived."

Fudge grimaced because he knew that this would prevent him from telling his biggest financial contributor and his Senior Undersecretary, but he was sure that she would be the first to maneuver herself into his position if she could and as for Malfoy, Fudge was sure that he would understand the need for secrecy, after all, he had a son the same age as the Potter boy.

Amelia went to do some research in the files, using the annual visit to Azkaban and that she had spoken to Sirius Black that traitor as the reason for looking into the Potter files including what Dumbledore had sealed.

Fudge meanwhile had returned to the Ministry and when he had sent his Undersecretary on a wild goose chase, he paid a visit to his muggle equal. While there, he was surprised to find that this new guy was more willing to work with them, not realizing that it was the idea of having something to hold over Fudge that had John Major agreeing to help.

Severus Snape meanwhile administered the draught to the headmaster and then returned to where Minerva was methodically going through the files in the office of the headmaster. "Minerva, what about the portraits?"

"Who do you think alerted me to the fact that the headmaster was acting strangely." She said as she looked over at Dippet and Black who were as far apart as two wizards could be on the political spectrum but who were thick as thieves as they tried to recall all that the headmaster had ever mentioned regarding Harry Potter or anything related.

The next month passed and it was September 1st. All that had happened was the total and complete upending of the magical world when the news of the headmaster's illness and the missing boy who lived getting reluctantly released. Most believed that the headmaster had taken ill when he had learned that the Boy Who Lived had been kidnapped, all except those truly in the know which had expanded to include an enraged but exonerated Sirius Black and a very pissed off werewolf.

Hagrid had eventually confessed about the Philosopher's stone and it had immediately been returned to the Flammel's who had promptly disappeared, fleeing the anger of the magical community for endangering their world on a Quixotic quest being lead by an ill man to capture a dead man.

Quirinus Quirrell had been possessed but the man possessing him had not realized that the stone wasn't in the castle until it was too late and he had been caught and fired by Minerva McGonagall. When Quirrell had attacked the newly appointed headmistress, he had been defeated by Severus Snape and a newly created spell that froze the attacker. He had been tried and convicted and sent through the veil, all with the wraith attached to the back of his head still frozen into position and unable to defend himself until it was too late.

Now, the whole of the magical world was searching through the muggle world for the boy who lived, or as he was better-known now, Harry James Potter. Too bad for them, the boy who lived, well he had landed in a much better place and was now known as Harold Williams, younger brother of one Sarah Williams, American.

It would be two years before Harry aka Harold would show up, and show up he did, the brother in law of the king of the goblins, what king of the goblins, well Jareth king of the goblins and as a result, the magical world would soon learn that the Marauders and the Weasley twins were pure amateurs in the history of those who pulled pranks.

By the time that Harry James Potter aka Harold Williams graduated from Hogwarts, he had made enemies of those who felt entitled because who was there more entitled than a prince, of those who felt disdain for the goblins, because how could you dislike the Boy Who Lived and of those who felt that he was spoiled rotten, because of course the Prince of the goblins was spoiled, but he was also smart and talented and powerful enough to do wandless magic.

While his dark hair, green eyes, and easy smile caught the attention of plenty of girls, even before you tossed in his great wealth, magical lineage and titles, Harry would fall for one girl, the one girl that Ronald Weasley was so sure that no one would ever fall for. The-know-it-all muggleborn Hermione Granger, which flabbergasted not only Ronald but his sister Ginny who had been bound and determined to gain the hand of the Boy Who Lived.

Too bad, because Harold would spend the five years he attended Hogwarts chasing after the smartest witch of her age and then would date her for the four years she spent attending muggle university, eventually marrying her in an underground ceremony the summer before she started law school while he kept studying political science.

As for the headmaster, he had spent the last fifteen years of his life trying to convince someone, anyone that the dark lord still lived, too bad that no one believed him, not even his closest allies. By the time that Harold had married the Granger girl, he had become so depressed, that it was only his delicious lemon drops that kept him from throwing himself into the Black Lake.

As his enemies were vanquished, the headmaster spent more and more time in his head, until one day, a man, a thin man with wild hair and eyes that didn't match showed up to deal with him.

One mention of the Greater good and the headmaster was no more, in his place was a goblin, one of the lesser kind, not the aboveground goblins who ruled his banks, but a common hobgoblin who took one look into a mirror and who ran away sobbing, straight into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

 **The end.**


End file.
